Focaccia on The Rambling Epicure

My blog post about focaccia is on The Rambling Epicure. To visit this exciting new food-and-wine website click here.

Vas is das? Paris, Paris, Paris, Paris!

When I first moved to Paris in 1986 I lived in a 7th-floor walk-up apartment with no window. It had a skylight -- at the top of a long shaft. "Not much of a view," I remarked cheerfully -- I was in my twenties and Paris was a lark. "Climb up and look out of the vas is das," suggested a friend. Baffled, I obeyed, using a long ladder from the hallway. The view was magnificent -- Paris rooftops, cupolas, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Eiffel Tower snagging clouds, far across town.

"What's a 'vas is das'" I asked, once I'd climbed down the ladder. My friend told me the origin of this Germanic-sounding word. Whether it's a true story or not, I've never forgotten it. Apparently when the Germans took over during the Occupation, they searched buildings from the cellars to the rafters. They were perplexed -- as I was -- by the tiny, usually grimy little skylights in the roofs of Paris. "Vas is das?" they demanded. "What is this?"

Here's a view of the rooftop of the building where I now have an office. It's not the vas-is-das of 25 years ago, but looks exactly the same. And I still have a view of rooftops, cupolas, and the Eiffel Tower (not shown), plus Notre Dame. So, "vas is das?" A wonderful, pigeon-eye view of the world's favorite city!

If you're looking for our Paris, Paris Tours website, please click here

Alison Harris's Food Photography on The Rambling Epicure

A sampler of Alison's terrific food photography is on show on The Rambling Epicure, the new food-and-wine website for thoughtful food-and-wine lovers. Here's the lead paragraph, and a photo. To see the whole article and more photos, please click here.

By Jonell Galloway
Alison Harris lives in Paris and travels extensively taking photos for travel books, cookbooks, advertising campaigns, newspapers and magazines. Alison did the photography for Sophia Loren’s Recipes and Memories, as well as for for Food Wine Burgundy and Food Wine Rome...

Vintage Beaune

My first post for TheRamblingEpicure is about Beaune and wine.
The background: author and editor Jonell Galloway, creator of the website, discovered Food Wine Burgundy at a winery-B&B in Beaune. She reviewed the book, contacted me, and we are now working together. So the sequencing was as follows: 1) admiration for the book; 2)review; 3) professional collaboration. This wasn't a tit-for-tat. Otherwise I would not be so upfront about posting her review, and then also immediately posting my first article for TheRamblingEpicure. Integrity is all, and that's no joke. Ask the ex-president of Tunisia. Enjoy!

FROM THERAMBLINGEPICURE.COM


Vintage Beaune
Beaune, Burgundy wineries, wine tourism, winemaking

by David Downie

Many wine lovers know that in the Middle Ages monks at the abbey of Cluny in southern Burgundy perfected the art of winemaking. But few outside the region have heard of Rector Eumenus’ speech in 312 AD to Emperor Constantine at Augustodunum, today’s Autun. Even locals don’t realize that fine wines were being grown in Constantine’s day on the limestone hills of the Côte d’Or.

Eumenus extolled in particular the vineyards of a pleasant village called Belenos, on the Roman road from Lyon to Paris, in the sunwashed Sâone River Valley. Still the capital of winegrowing in Burgundy, modern Belenos, better known as Beaune, hosts more wineries within or near its medieval ramparts than any mere mortal—except, perhaps, Robert Parker—could reasonably discover in anything less than a three-day visit.
Read the whole post...

Food Wine Burgundy reviewed by Jonell Galloway

Here's a flattering review of Food Wine Burgundy on the great new food-lovers' site TheRamblingEpicure. Lovely!


Critics’ Café: Book Review, Food Wine Burgundy, by David Downie and Alison Harris

by Jonell Galloway

I have written many a guidebook, I have used many a guidebook, and I know Burgundy pretty darned well, but this exquisite book, Food Wine Burgundy, is like none other. It is chock full of information not found in any other book I’ve seen about Burgundy. It is Burgundy for those who want to discover Burgundy for the first time, but it is also Burgundy for those who, like me, already know Burgundy and want to know it still more.

Downie is a writer’s writer, a writer for those who appreciate good writing, yet his writing is clear and accessible to all. His lucid manner of presenting and describing food and wine make you feel confident that he has done his homework (which he has; this book is 20 years in the making) and that you can rely on his recommendations. He not only has an amazing depth of knowledge about food, wine, and history, but he weaves it all together in an amazing, catchy prose not seen in modern-day guidebooks. He has a love of « terroir »; of what the land has to offer, of earthy food and wine. He seems to have the nose of a truffle hog, because in the addresses we’ve tried so far and already know, we’ve never found him to be off the mark.

The beautiful photos by Alison Harris create the perfect atmosphere for the subject matter, and make you feel you’re already in Burgundy, no matter where on the globe you might be.

Its format and look are original and classy, and it’s not too bulky, which is important when you’re traveling.

The prose and photos together make this much more than a guidebook. It is a book for booklovers, a book you will pick up time and time again, not just because you’re planning a trip to Burgundy, but because it is a little jewel of a book. You will read about the places you’ve been and the places you want to go, and feel you’re almost there.

Back in Paris, Paris: Fashion, Attitude

If you’d put the scene in a movie the audience would’ve groaned. Too cliché. Too Paris. Too fashion. Too American-in-Paris. Too much everything.

After sunny Italy I deplaned from Easyjet and followed the mob toward baggage claim. As we 200+ passengers arrived at the escalators we were hailed and thwarted. “That way!” snapped a fashionista French woman with a walkie talkie. The way she waved it and talked and walked you could tell she meant business. This was no policewoman or airport guard. She was a producer for the fashion photo shoot being staged on the escalator that we plebians needed to take. “Closed! Take the stairs!!” snarled the razor-edged glam lady, looking more and more like an S&M impresario.

Meanwhile putatively hip music boomed, and a starveling, cringing, putatively sexy gal gobbed with makeup and hung with ridiculous rags wiggled to the loud sounds. The photographer, a groovy American guy in his 40s probably, with a camera the size of a cannon, kept shouting “beautiful, beautiful, beautiful” as the mob pushed and growled and struggled down a nearby staircase, carrying those hideously heavy carry on bags, back packs and whatnot that plebians like me carry.

I knew I was back in Paris! The other Paris. Not Paris, Paris – the loveable city of my book!

April in Paris, Paris: Join us with Tuscany Tours

We'll be offering all our Paris tours in April (and before and after!), but this year for the second time we'll be teaming up with our partner Tuscany Tours for a Paris-Northern Burgundy April extravaganza. Only two seats are left, so don't wait to click here for details.



If the dates don't work for you, or if you'd rather take an even smaller, more private, totally tailor-made tour with the two of us, please email me and I'll get to work right away: dddownie@gmail.com

All the best from Paris, Paris...

A Perfect Day in Genoa: Monet and Farinata

When Paris puts on a major art exhibition with paintings by the likes of Courbet, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Derain, Dufy, Bonnard and others, everyone around the globe knows about it. Millions line up, and the City of Light shines.

When Genoa is the venue – in this case, the magnificent, frescoed Palazzo Ducale – no one beyond a radius of 20 miles hears of the show. Once the opening is over, few attend. This is tragic; on the other hand, it’s a boon.

Back in Genoa the other day – a perfect, sunny, mild day – we had the exhibition, “Mediterraneo: da Courbet a Monet a Matisse”, to ourselves.

Sublime, delighful, gorgeous, inspiring, uplifting, awesome (I said I’d never use “awesome” again but...): These are good words to describe the works. The theme is the Mediterranean’s peculiar light – the light and shadow that impart singular, seductive, ambiguous optical qualities.

The Mediterranean has always drawn sun-starved northern Europeans. They flocked here in winter. Most of the canvases on show were painted between January and April. Many bowled me over. Anyone who thinks Munch painted only screams of anguish in ghoulish light and ghastly colors should see the stunning paintings included here: “Sunny Day in Nice” and “Morning on the Promenade des Anglais.”

The many Monets include a pair of views – done from the same angle at different times of day – titled “The Fort of Antibes.” Between them hangs Eugène Boudin’s lovely version of the same view, with the same title. The contrast between Monet’s magical impressionistic technique and the more pictorial yet dazzlingly vibrant Boudin teaches lessons on how to see beyond the pigment.




Speaking of which, I was finally able to see with my own sore eyes the original of a Monet I had only known from catalogues: “Palm Trees in the Moreno Garden at Bordighera.”




It was in this canvas and others that Monet painted in the winter of 1884 (paintings I describe in one of my early books on Italy) that he discovered the Mediterranean’s shimmering chiaroscuro. “... Monet left the promenades of Bordighera to wander into the Sasso Valley,” I wrote, “where he was dazzled by the ‘diabolical colors’ of almond and peach trees growing amid palms and lemons and olives ‘in delicious harmony.’” What a treat to see and confirm my supposition!

The ‘delicious harmony’ continued after the exhibition over lunch at Sa Pèsta, an old Genoa eatery I discovered in 1976. Their specialty is farinata – the inimitable Ligurian garbanzo-bean tart, baked in a wood-burning oven. Amazingly, Sa Pèsta has been in business, in the same place, serving the same kind of exquihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsitely simple fare, since the days of Monet. Who knows if the French master sat at the table we took, and savored the farinata, crisp on top and moist underneath? One thing’s sure: the light of the Riviera in at least a dozen of the paintings in the show was strikingly like what we enjoyed in Genoa. A perfect day.



Book a hotel on the Italian Riviera (Liguria)

Sun and Spring on the Riviera

Dawn over Genoa this morning. Now it's downright hot...

Perfect weather, no crowds, fab food... This is winter on the Italian Riviera. I once had bumper sticker that read "Summer Stinks, Think Snow" -- it showed a skunk with skis. Nowadays, though I detest bumper stickers, if I had to have one it would say "Summer Stinks, Think Winter."

Wherever you are, I hope you're enjoying the winter. If you'd like some sun and fun and delicious food and wonderful scenery and no Sarah Palin or targets on anyone's head... the Riviera is available to all, I have no monopoly on it. In fact I'm just a guest, and am about to return to the frost of Northern Europe...

American Bomb, Focaccia al Formaggio and Fascists

There’s a reason “Wreck-Oh!” is the irreverent nickname for Recco, the Italian Riviera’s self-styled “culinary capital” and probable birthplace of the cheese-filled delicacy focaccia con formaggio.



This once-charming seaside village was flattened by RAF and USAF bombers in an 8-month period from summer 1943 to spring 1944. The goal: blow up the railroad viaduct spanning the Recco River. The Allies ran 20 bombing raids on Recco, a small place, smaller than an American shopping mall. The effects were devastating. Only a few buildings -- and the railway viaduct -- were left standing. Hundreds of people died.



Since everyone on the Riviera lives to be about 100, many in Recco remember those raids. Most are not Fascist sympathizers. They wish the Allies had had better aim.

The bombing raids explain the abundance of unexploded munitions: discoveries of bombs are frequent even now. A big one – 500 pounds – dropped by the USAF was unearthed a few days ago. A new apartment building is going up in Recco. When the bulldozers got down to the foundations the bomb was revealed. It’s too rusty to be disarmed on the spot. So, fittingly, on Sunday, January 16 the bomb will be blown up – hopefully not on site. It will be eased from its bed and taken to Savona and blown up there. Unless something goes wrong. That’s way the entire town is being evacuated – 4, 442 residents – and the highway and freeway closed. Train service will be cut. Everything will be closed. Anyone hoping to eat focaccia con formaggio will have to look elsewhere (go to Camogli and eat at La Rotonda — the chef is from Recco; see my Rotonda blog post).

The other day I was reading about the bomb at a local caffè a few miles from Recco. In “Il Corriere Mercantile,” the regional business daily, I paused and reread a sentence. My blood – the blood of someone whose mother was in the Italian Resistenza, and whose father fought in Italy during the war – rose in temperature.

In the article, an elderly gentlemen from Recco was quoted (though no attribution was given) as saying that the bill for shutting down the town and blowing up the bomb should be sent to the White House. Yes: the White House.

This is the kind of slippery, sideways Fascist nostalgia that we’re seeing more and more of in Italy -- and elsewhere. The decades have passed. People forget. The young are ignorant (sound familiar?). The real, authentic Fascists of Mussolini’s day were not cuddly and neither are their heirs, who run several Italian regions or cities. Mussolini’s Fascists assassinated dissenters, tortured people (including my grandfather), and destroyed families of those on the political left. They passed the “Racial Laws” of 1938 and packed off Jews by the thousand, sending them to Nazi camps. The Italian Fascists may not have been as horrible as the Nazis or the Soviet zealots who massacred millions in those ugly years. But they were monstrous in their own right.

I calmly put down the newspaper but couldn’t help pointing out to others at the caffè that if the bill for the bomb were to be sent to the White House, then maybe the White House should in turn send a bill to Rome and Berlin. Those bills would include the phenomenal cost in lives and treasure of removing the Fascists and Nazis, and keeping the Soviets from taking over Western Europe, including Italy.

I also pointed out that the vintage gentlemen in Recco should be among the first to thank the Allies. They did their best not to kill the locals during the war, and it was thanks to the Allies that this gentleman had been able to spout nonsense for the last 65 years, in liberty, and with remarkable prosperity. Much to my surprise everyone present in the caffè agreed, and derided the stupidity of the elderly gentleman in Recco who’d made the egregious, unattributed remark.

Then came the inevitable talk about my family, and about the lamentable state of affairs in Italy and America. “You have your own brand of Fascism now,” said one good fellow (no attribution – I am a citizen reporter, and this isn’t the NY Times). Sadly, I had to agree with him. What most people forget, or do not know, is that Fascism in Italy and elsewhere was triumphant in part because it was a movement that combined populism, ignorance, fear and a denunciation of a flawed democratic system, a system in desperated need of reform – as is ours today. Fascism though populist was funded by the super-rich, with backing by reactionary Catholics. It appealed to the rich as a means to thwart Communism. It appealed to the middle classes for the same reason, and to the poor, because it promised full employment. The Fascists drew cross-hairs on their enemies, and long before they actually took power in Rome, they systematically attacked, murdered and brutalized rivals, all the while presenting themselves as a new, fresh, people’s movement, a movement that would at least free “il popolo” from the ills of an inefficient government.

Recco has a bomb in the heart of its cheese focaccia, and we have many bomblets scattered around the country, waiting to explode. Will we in America ever learn from the past? The saddest truth is this: some Americans have taken the lessons of history to heart. They have learned to imitate the populist fear-and-hate mongers, populists who will have you believe that government is not the answer, it’s the problem. The problem with that catchy line is that it’s a lie and it’s designed to wreck democracy in America. We are the government. We the people. The corporations and banks and the billionaires who fund political movements have no business running our government. So next time you hear ignoramuses gloating over how they’re going to dismantle “the bureaucracy” and go after the crooks in Washington, don’t let them get away with it.

(Photos: Recco before the war: Comune di Recco; Recco bombardment: liguri.net; focaccia con formaggio: atala.blog)

American Miracle Under an Italian Hat

Have you seen this hat before? No? Really? Look again. It's been on my head every day as I've hiked around the Italian Riviera.



Here it is atop Monte Manico del Lume, at 2,400 feet above sea level.



And here it is, seen from the inside.

The thing about this hat is, it was made in the USA. Is that possible? Nothing is made in the USA anymore, is it? I showed the label to astonished Italian friends, and promised them I'd blog this all-American hat, made for the Harbor Pilots of Genoa. Now, a tale hangs from this hat, a tale of our adventures with the head of the harbor pilots a few years back. You can read about how I got the hat, and the discoveries Alison and I made in Genoa with the city's head harbor pilot, in a new anthology of travel writing, just out with Lonely Planet. My chapter is titled "Of Baskets, Boars and Brotherhood." I'll say no more. Here's the cover of the book and a link to Amazon.

How to Cook a Cat, Riviera-style

(image: San Rocco, again...)

The other day at Arturo’s butcher shop – that’s Arturo Paolucci here in San Rocco – I was waiting in line and joking with a friend, an honest, courageous Carabiniere based in Rapallo. Ahead of me in line were a pair of young girls with their pets – two adorable little dogs. One othe dogs, a poodle, looked amazingly like a lamb. My interlocutor noticed the resemblance and I remarked that the girl ought to be careful. Someone might get Arturo to butcher her dog. I told the startled company about the fabulously delicious (really awesome) tacos I once ate in Mexico, years ago, and the horror I felt when I discovered they’d been made with dog meat. No joke. The girls recoiled, dragging their dogs out of harm’s way.

This tale and the girls’ reaction prompted general mirth and guffawing among the adults. Then I mentioned that I’d eaten dog and probably cat without knowing it in other countries, maybe even Italy. My mother had had to sacrifice her pet rabbits during the war – though she didn’t eat them herself. The cats of Rome disappeared when food supplies ran out.

This is when an elderly local lady piped up and told us all about the bad old days, in the war, when in her village in Liguria the cats disappeared, as they had in Rome. “They say cat is delicious,” she affirmed. “But I never ate it, I only ate rabbit or chicken…” The Carabiniere wondered aloud how she was so sure. “Oh, I figured out that rabbits have flat rib bones, whereas the ribs of cats are rounded, like chicken bones.” By now the little girls had blanched and were tugging at their dogs’ leashes. They fled as the smiling senior told us in detail how the cats were cooked. Here’s her recipe.

“Simple,” began the garrulous woman. “First, you clean the cat and you soak it in cold, running water for 8 days, until it’s totally white…” This seemed an awfully long time to me, and I said so, but then again, good, dry-hung beef hangs for 3 weeks, as Arturo confirmed… And in winter, in a constant stream of near-freezing spring water, why not?

“Once the cat is ready to cook, you use the classic recipe for rabbit or chicken – alla ligure.” The lady rattled off that recipe, and assured us again that cat is delicious, that it tastes just like rabbit or chicken, but that she’s never, ever eaten it. Ever. Really.

For that classic recipe, click here, and go back to an earlier posting in my blog. It’s an easy and awesomely great recipe.

If you’re looking for my Paris, Paris Tours blog instead, please click here

Wintering on the Riviera: Spring in January

The Nativity scenes aren’t even down yet – the Magi only arrived on Epiphany, January 6. And the mimosa is already in bloom! Allergens galore!! I meant to write a post about Nativity Scenes on the Riviera – some of Italy’s best are here, unsung. But that’ll have to wait until next year.

This is Signor Maggiolo’s presepe (Nativity scene) down the road from us, in San Rocco.

Back to the mimosa and spring.



Our neighbor’s lovely mimosa… with the Mediterranean in the background, 600 vertical feet below.

I’ve always wondered about the calendar in Italy. Independently of climate change (which has scrambled up seasons and temperatures), it usually starts to feel springlike in January, at least on this stretch of the Italian Riviera, east of Genoa. Everyone with a bike is out riding on the Via Aurelia (suicidal but they don’t seem to mind). People on the promenades in Genoa, Rapallo and Santa Margherita sweat profusely in their mink or shearling coats, in brilliant sun.

January and February are also about the best months for certain big Italian cities like Rome and Naples – unless you’re into sweltering heat, air pollution, and mobs. Not only are the crowds smaller in winter. The weather is also usually the way I like it: cool and breezy by day, often with lots of winter sun, and cold at night. That’s the best weather for sleeping.

It’s not just the mimosa that’s blooming here. The hazelnut trees and a zillion other deciduous trees are too. The killer pollens come from cypresses and bay trees, and we’re surrounded by bay laurels here (useful for cooking). Sniffle, sniffle. Happily the atmosphere and views and food and company are super-awesome (please note that this is the last time I will use “awesome” in this blog, because the word is making me ill).

Awesome seafood pesto recipe, great lunch at Da Mirin

(photo shown: Alison's cover shot for Enchanted Liguria, which shows the church of San Rocco di Camogli)

The perched village of San Rocco di Camogli could fit in a picnic hamper, yet it boasts a famous bakery (Maccarini), a great butcher shop (Arturo Paolucci), a Michelin-praised restaurant (Nonna Nina) and a friendly little trattoria with fresh fish and a nice terrace and eager owners: Da Mirin. Co-owner Sandro does the cooking, while his wife and fellow proprietor, Elena, waits and runs the show.

Today Sandro whipped up some succulent fresh fish mousse with local olive oil, salt and pepper – not the creamy, heavy kind of mousse you get in fancy restaurants or in France. We nibbled on that with focaccia while waiting for the Pesto di Mare. This too is Sandro’s invention. First you clean and mince or process a bunch of fresh, fragrant basil, tossing in a fistful of plump pine nuts. Then you set the salsa aside. (Yes, salsa. In Italy, “sugo” = “sauce” and it is cooked, whereas “salsa” is raw, always). You take a handful of fresh, ripe tomatoes, simmer them at low heat in excellent olive oil, with a pinch each of salt and pepper. You prepare a couple of handfuls of fresh shrimp. You boil pasta like trenette or linguine or tagliolini or even fresh gnocchi. While the pasta is cooking, you toss the shrimp in with the tomatoes. A few seconds before the pasta is al dente, you take the sauce off the heat, put it in a serving bowl and stir in the salsa (the pesto of basil and pine nuts – no cheese, no garlic). Then you toss in the hot pasta and serve pronto. Awesome. Super, really, killer awesome.

If you're looking for my Paris, Paris Tours blog please click here

Super-Awesome Sanctuary, Recipes, Hotel-Restaurant Tip

Smile! Your awesomely fearless blogger atop Monte Manico del Lume (photo courtesy of Luciano Parisi), 2,400+ feet above the Mediterranean (background, left). Alison refused to be in the picture.

The Riviera romp continues. Succinctly.

It has been brought to my attention that readers of blogs are interested in three things: 1) recipes; 2) restaurant and hotel tips; 3) photos.

Musings, political commentary, literature and philosophy are topics of the pre-electronic past. Brevity is all. The brave new paradigm!

Briefly: I’ve also learned from multiple sources, contemporanously, that “awesome” is the current buzz adjective. Until now “awesome” has been entirely missing from my awesome blog. A simple, naked awesome not modified by “really” or “killer” or “super” is not really awesome however, I’m told. Plain awesome is like “good” or “okay,” meaning lousy, rotten, depressed, etc… Since I’m already beyond the Twitter count for this posting, I’ll cut to the chase: awesome hedonism in a temple of the spirit!

The Sanctuary of Nosta Signora di Montallegro, a super-awesome really old place made from marble, poised on a ridge way above the Italian Riviera was, we soon discovered, really great and killer awesomissimo. Not only are there panoramas to kill, and ancient oak trees cloaking the slopes. There’s even a neat church with cool votive offerings (things people leave for the Madonna or a saint, in hopes of receiving help of some kind, editor’s note).

Best of all, in the souvenir boutique hangs a stuffed crocodile 400 years old. This croc reportedly began chewing on a Ligurian missionary in deepest Congo some time in the 1600s. The missionary invoked the Madonna of Montallegro. She intervened, poking the croc, and he spat out his snack. In thanks, the missionary’s happy converts slayed the reptile, who foolishly didn’t finish the chewing job before the missionary could make his Ethernet call to Montallegro. The croc was gutted and preserved and stuffed, then sent back to Rapallo to be displayed at the sanctuary. No, I am not making this up. I have dubbed the croc “Dusty,” because he has been hanging for centuries from the ceiling, and could use a dusting. But he is awesome, really, super awesome.

No room for a recipe here. I can assure you that the pesto, roast veal with slivered baby artichoke hearts, and semifreddo with cinnamon – all housemade – are remarkably awesome at Hotel-Ristorante Montallegro. So is the homemade jam and the honey (the owner is a beekeepr). The views of Rapallo and Santa Margherita and Portofino from our comfy, recently restored room (#208) were almost as good as those from the top of Monte Manico del Lume, and the ride down to Rapallo on the funicular would alone be worth a trip here. Super-duper awesome.



As to my unwanted reflections on the wild boars that chased us, and the link between the idiotic hunters of Liguria and those of Alaska (and Washington, D.C.), I will spare you – no recipe to remedy that sad situation without effective gun control. The death (while we were hiking) of the Italian soldier in Afghanistan, about which we learned at the hotel (did any of you hear about it?), prompted yet other musings. Musings about the ancient Romans, who took 80 years to subdue the ancient Ligurian tribes who lived here 2,000 years ago. The Ligurians’ steep, stony territory bore then and still bears today a remarkable resemblance to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Eighty years to dislodge the Ligurians? And guess what? The Romans failed. They’re still here, those Ligurians. They hid in the crevices. They fought. They came back. They still speak their own dialect and eat their own foods. Maybe we need to invoke the Madonna of Montallegro to get us out of Afghanistan and teach us a thing about peace and brotherly love, and tolerance of those who prefer discourse to fire-power whether in war zones or convention halls. That would be really super awesome.

Part Three: The Riviera’s Wild West: Summitry

From Passo del Gallo up we went, hauling ourselves to the top of the cliff face by using the handy chains placed there by the ever-helpful C.A.I. – the Italian Alpine Club. Once on the final, slippery slope of Monte Manico del Lume, and within shouting distance of the wild goats, I began shouting. The goats stared at us for some time, seemingly unable or unwilling to decide whether they should shift themselves for the benefit of two grubby interlopers. After many howls, growls, threats in various languages and imprecations, the beasts scurried ahead, still on our narrow path. This wasn’t what they were supposed to do. It meant we were forced to keep up the howls and threats until we and the goats reached the peak, the summit, the highest heights.

Naturally a large crucifix awaited us – surrounded by the goats, who irreverently left droppings everywhere. A plaque on a stone pillar assured us that we’d reached 801 meters above sea level – about 2,450 feet. It wasn’t the Andes or even the Alps, but since Monte Manico del Lume rises practically straight out of the Mediterranean, the effect is fairly impressive.

What I failed to tell you in earlier paragraphs is that, as we climbed up the mountain, Alison paused to take a photo with her fancy new Nokia cell phone, which combines many nifty features into a handsome package, but defeats users over the age of 9. Having wrestled with the phone and the built-in camera, we discovered we’d unintentionally made a video of our struggle. It’s embarrassing. And I’ll be damned if either of us can figure out how to get the video off the phone and onto a computer. So, for now, no video, and no digital photos by Alison, either.

You will have noticed that there are images to accompany these blog entries. Unbeknownst to us they were taken by a vigorous young Italian hiker, who appeared suddenly – like a hunter popping out of a hole – and did not seem as surprised as we were to be sharing the summit with other humans and goats. In other words, Luciano Parisi, as his name is, had been following us at some distance, and had taken several photos of the mountainside with us clinging to it. Here’s that pic again.



Luciano asked Alison to take a photo of him for his wife. We in turn asked Luciano to take some photos of us, since we were incapable of making our digital equipment work (Alison’s old Olympus was working fine, of course, but her analog photos won’t be ready for weeks, months, years…). Affable and over-educated, Luciano turns out to be a teacher of Italian literature at Exeter University in the UK. We exchanged email addresses and bingo, a few days later the photos arrived.

Since in our lives at least all roads seem to lead either to Rome or Paris, I was not surprised that Luciano’s last name was Parisi. Parisi is the modern Italian version of Parisii (with two i’s). The Parisii were Gallic tribes-people who lived, among other places, in what’s now Paris… a lovely place on the Sequana River (the Seine) which Caesar dubbed “Lutetia Parisiorum” – meaning “City of Mud of the Parisii.” Luciano was aware of the Paris family connection, but the City of Mud part of the reference had until then escaped his ken. “I’m heading back to Isca Dumniorum,” he said. Noticing our perplexity, he explained (in an email, later): Isca Dumniorum is modern-day Exeter.

Back to my earlier mention of the “white lump in the background, to the left of the image” (in my last blog post). Here it is, blown up for your delectation.



That white lump is none other than the Santuario di Montallegro, our destination for the night. With afternoon swinging into gear, and another 3 or 4 hours of hiking ahead of us, and not much daylight, we had to skidaddle. So we said farewell to Luciano the Parisian, shouted at the goats, and watched them leap into the air, evoking Dante. This was not the first time we’d thought of the great poet since we set out before dawn to conquer Monte Manico del Lume. Earlier, we’d thought of hunters as inmates in Dante’s Inferno. Now we recalled the famous line, also in the Inferno (Canto XXI), in which one of the damned blows a monumental raspberry: … avea del cul fatto trombetta (he’d made a trumpet of his ass).

Why did we have this thought? Because as the goats fled before our savage cries, they leapt into the air and farted mightily. It was quite a ghastly and a gassy spectacle. If any of you reading this knows anything about goats and gas attacks, please strike a match and illuminate this episode for us (but don’t hold the match too close).

Now, I could stretch this tale out another blog post or two, but I’ll telescope it and tell you that I fell and slipped only three more times (Alison fell only once), and with my torn shoes and clicking knees was able to limp up and down several other, lesser mountains and then along an accordion ridge. I wheezed, and it kept expanding as we walked along it, putting the sanctuary beyond our reach. Staggering, full of wonderful thoughts about Dante, hunters, goats, Eternal Returns, tea parties, Afghanistan, corporate fascism and suchlike, we made it to Montallegro for a gorgeous sunset. This being Italy, we were able to check into a comfortable room at a handsome hostelry called – you’ll never guess – Albergo Ristorante Montallegro. Before the ritual bathing and feasting, we summoned the strength to crawl back up to the night-lit sanctuary. Montallegro is a startlingly rich repository of the hopes and prayers of locals since the 1500s. But that’s another story. A domani...


(photos copyright: Luciano Parisi)

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Hiking the Italian Riviera’s Wild West

Ironically the Italian Riviera’s Wild West is on its eastern half, up and away and behind the seaside resorts of Camogli, Santa Margherita Ligure and Rapallo. Actually, the Wild West is everywhere inland in Liguria, once you’re off the coastal strip. The so-called entroterra – the outback – is depopulated, rough, spectacular, overrun by wild boars and mountain goats, and criss-crossed by seriously challenging trails. The only people you encounter are crazed hikers like us, or Elmer Fudds with shotguns and hunting rifles.

(photo copyright: Luciano Parisi)

On New Year's day we set out at dawn, woefully under-equipped as usual: jogging shoes, no rain gear, a slim picnic, and only one bottle of water (we’d failed to buy an extra bottle, and all the stores were closed for the holidays of course). At least I had a wind-up flashlight, in case night closed in on us.


(Photo copyright: Alison Harris)

Under a gloriously gray sky – the color of the sea and the slate mountainsides – we set off on paved roads from Camogli for the 1,000-year-old Chiesa Millenaria in Ruta. Its stone campanile rises like a pointy pencil, on the ridge behind this village on the ancient Roman road, la Via Aurelia. From the church a pre-Roman mule trail climbs a series of humpback ridges, heading into the outback, toward the Sanctuary of Caravaggio.

This Caravaggio has nothing to with the painter. Caravaggio is a mountaintop aerie and hiker’s refuge perched at about 600 meters above sea level (1800-1900 feet).

Once you leave behind the isolated houses and olive orchards, you’re into scrub oak, chestnuts and arbutus (the Brits call it “strawberry-tree”, and the fruit, ripe in winter, does indeed look an awful lot like strawberries). In the deep, dark woods about an hour into our climb we heard a rustling sound followed by grunts.

“Boars!” I whispered hoarsely to Alison. “Naw, hunters,” she said calmly. I swore abundantly and shouted so they wouldn’t mistake us for game -- a hike like this transforms your body into a dripping mass.

If you ask me all blood-sportsmen are chromosome-deficient but Italian Elmer Fudds are among the world’s most reckless, most gleefully irresponsible. We’ve encountered dozens of them, and been fired upon more than once – they love to scare hikers and pilgrims. This time around it was a pair of young men in camouflage gear – fashion-conscious Italians often spend a fortune on hunting outfits. They turned out to be a father-and-son team. They were friendly enough, smiling in that idiotic, sheepish way that hunters smile when confronted by non-sub-normals not out to kill wildlife.

Alison asked if they were after boars. “No,” said papa-hunter. “Songbirds.” Even the ever-mild Alison couldn’t restrain herself. “But they’re so beautiful and they sing for all of us,” she protested. “The trouble is,” said papa-hunter, looking at his large rubber boots as he spoke, “there are no birds this morning.” I guffawed with gusto. “You don’t say? Do you ever wonder why there are no birds left to shoot?”

Feeling unhappy about this encounter, we hurried along. There was no need to dwell on the point or the spot. Half a dozen hunters’ blinds were hidden in the woods and on the ridge around us. There were shacks and lean-tos, fire-pits, benches – all the usual camp necessities for overgrown boys building tree houses and playing war.

To say that the final climb to Caravaggio is breathtaking sounds like a ready-made from the travel-writer’s notebook. But if you scramble up the foot-wide paths of split slate and slippery shale, and haul your carcass up the last 200 or so stairs leading to this Incan temple of Catholicism, you will know that loss of breath is actually a part of the process. The 360-degree views don’t actually take the breath away. They merely mesmerize you, make you dizzy, make you giddy, make you want to fly or shout.

We got to Caravaggio in time for a mid-morning snack – slabs of torrone chocolate nougat, sea biscuits, coffee and water. Had we turned back at this point, we would’ve felt pretty good about the start of the year. We would’ve felt we were still in decent shape at fifty-something. But we both wanted to continue on, at least as far as Monte Manico del Lume. We could see its snaggle-toothed summit one set of ridges inland. About another 3 hours away, providing the weather held, and we didn’t run into feral beasts or drunken hunters, or slip and slide into a gully. From Monte Manico del Lume it would be too far to turn back and get home before dark. So if we went ahead, we’d have to do the whole thing, the whole nine yards. All the way to Montallegro.

Awaiting us: wild boars, mountain goats, more and more challenging trails and tribulations… and breathtaking views… Read on. Tomorrow and tomorrow, and tomorrow’s blog…

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A New Year on the Italian Riviera

Whether new or old or ancient or merely a continuation of time immemorial, the year 2011 AD as marked on our calendars got off to a luminous start at midnight + 1 second. We were treated to bombastic fireworks and dramatic night-lighting of the seafront houses, churches and medieval castle in Camogli.




Here’s the view from Ristorante Da Rosa, perched on a cliff on the western edge of town. While a packed house of locals scarfed down Maria Rosa’s seafood, pesto, Pigato and much more, feasting in honor of Saint Sylvester (a nice pretext for a chow-down), this year we stayed home. We ate succulent pork chops and potatoes, and zingy Zemin, that inimitable Ligurian chard-and-chickpea soup. It is much much better than it sounds.

Here’s a thumbnail recipe of the easiest kind, for four servings of Zemin.

Combine in a large pot:

About two pounds of chard (the younger and more tender the better – we use old-fashioned beta vulgaris chard, which is like perpetual spinach) or spinach, roughly chopped
Two 16-ounce cans of chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), rinsed twice (or 1 pound dry garbanzo beans, which you’ll need to soak for at least 12 hours and rinse thoroughly before using)
Two large onions, roughly chopped
Two or three cloves garlic, hand crushed, green shoots removed
A couple of tablespoons of excellent extra virgin olive oil
A pinch each of salt and freshly ground black pepper
A quart and a half or so of cold water

Bring the ingredients to a boil any way you please and then simmer, covered, for about an hour, adding a cup or so of water about halfway through.

Place one galletta (a sea biscuit or hard tack) or one slice of stale bread into the bottom of a large, deep soup bowl, one per person (in theory there are four of you). Ladle in the soup. Drizzle in more olive oil if you like, and if you really want to pull out all the stops, grate some Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino Romano on top. (Some people make Zemin with chili pepper flakes instead of black pepper, which is swell; and some put in a chunk or bits of pancetta or bacon, which is also swell, but the rich, spicy flavors compete with the chard).

Made with this recipe, Zemin is as easy to digest as it is to make. Read on and you’ll understand why ease of digestion was particularly important to us on this New Year’s Eve.

We watched the Camogli fireworks not from Da Rosa this year but from another, more distant, much quieter angle, within a few feet of our bedroom.

There was rhyme to our reasoning. Early to bed… The next morning, on the First, we were up way before dawn—at 5:45am. We started our New Year’s hike as soon as we’d finished breakfast: crumbled gallette (those sea biscuits again!) with milk, local honey and plump abate pears. Plus caffelatte and lots of water. Lots. Of water.

Because we knew we’d soon be sweating, despite the cold. It was near freezing—in the 30s Fahrenheit. I figured the first leg of our hike would take us a good 9 hours. It did. All of it up and down. But that’s in the next installments.


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